


A Tender Poison

by Necropede



Category: Inhumans (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Ableist Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Rivalry, other royals are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26625478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Necropede/pseuds/Necropede
Summary: For Black Bolt, his little brother is always a big enigma. For Maximus, his big brother is the center of their own small world. Some slices of life and psychological dramas between two siblings.
Relationships: Blackagar Boltagon & Maximus Boltagon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	A Tender Poison

**Author's Note:**

> It's a transrated fic of mine, English is not my first language, so please tell me if you find any mistake.  
> Special thanks to Esteicy and ImperiusRex for spell/grammar checking.

The younger prince's fingers were oddly beautiful.

Behind the walls of the royal palace of Attilan, Maximus sat reclining against the glass wall of the soundproofed isolation chamber, assembling something. Blackagar was watching him from the other side of that glass, had no idea what it was. Maximus' hands covered with tiny cuts and scratch endlessly, his short trimmed nails chipped, his fingertips looked callused and coarse. It wouldn't fit the definition of the realms of the so-called 'beautiful.' Although once his brother's infantile hands danced across the smooth surface of his bizarre inventions, probing its cold mechanical bowels... Those fingers, with their uncanny elegance and beauty, stirred the elder brother prince's curiosity.

_ <What are you building today?> _

The soundless voice converted into texts, displayed on the monitor on the door with a short beep. Generally, amid invention, whether or not Maximus would respond to his brother's message depended on his mood at the time. Today's didn't seem to be a wrong time for him, and Maximus turned off the tool and set it aside, turning around and directing his face towards the glass wall. But the boy didn't immediately answer him, staring at his brother with a blank expression like a researcher observing a lab rat in a cage.

"Nothing you can understand."

When Maximus finally opened his mouth, the younger boy slightly shook his head and resumed his work, switching the communicator from electronic alarm to vocal reading. Blackagar had already grown accustomed to his brother's contemptuous curtness. It was true that he had hardly understood the answer to the same question when he had asked it before. But the older prince had no idea why this child with an incredible gift for engineering whimsically popped up at his chamber, assembling bizarre devices in silence, bringing in copious amounts of books to indulge in reading quietly. Although Blackagar possessed a destructive power, he was no talent with any particular academic prowess, would not even be able to be a proper companion to satisfy his brother's extraordinary intelligence and curiosity.

_ <So Father and Mother are not in the palace?> _

"They're at a meeting of the Council, with our uncles and the others. So Triton and Karnak are visiting again. I can't be bothered."

_ <You don't like our cousins? > _

"I don't hate them. But those two are boring, that's all."

Perhaps, Blackagar assumed, here was a retreat for his brother, where he wouldn't be bothered by anyone. Only a very few people knew of the existence of the isolation chamber, even fewer those who had access to the place. He seriously doubted that their father and mother had even given Maximus permission to enter here freely. But in this very solitary place with very few visitors, a series of random conversations with his quirky brother was a valuable opportunity for him to interact with others.

As the elder prince watched, the younger brother's still tiny hands became increasingly beautiful as the bizarre machinery started to materialize. Most of Maximus's creations were almost impossible to figure out its function and usage from its appearance.

_ <You will be the best scientist in Attilan, just like Father and Mother, if not better,> _

At his brother's adoring praise, Maximus's fingers suddenly quit composing the soundless exquisite song and made a twitching motion. It was a gesture that seemed inapplicable, even obnoxious, to his brother's beautiful fingers.

The boy stood up, tossed all components and tools into a crate on a cart beside him without a word.

_ <Maximus, did I say something wrong? I had no intention of hurting you, but I do apologize if I wronged you.> _

Blackagar was utterly perplexed. His brother's volatility and mood swings were nothing new to him. But he would have been quite happy to be appreciated, especially by his older brother. Standing beside an over-sized cart that was too big for his slight frame, Maximus switched the communicator back from voice reading to electronic alert, then abruptly looked up at his brother's face.

"Nothing you can understand, brother."

The same remarking, as the conversation they had had just a few moments ago. Looking up at Blackagar through the glass, his expression was not his usual cold, contemptuous, indifferent look; the tightly frown eyebrows, the glaring big icy blue eyes, the twisted mouth that could be interpreted as either anguish or smile. All of these indicated the rage, the bitterness, and the palpable hatred directed at his big brother.

Maximus abruptly spun around on his heels and shoved the heavily constructed door open, sprinted out of the chamber. The cart carrying a crateful of mechanical parts and tools automatically followed its master with unexpecting speed and quietness, leaving Blackagar stunned and dismayed, unable to comprehend what in the world had upset his brother so badly.

  
  


\-------

  
  


"Medusa is utterly despicable, brother. How dare she employ uncle and aunt, her parents, to cheat on our contest!"

_ <Uncle said it was not like that, didn't he? > _

"He was not aware of this. That man is woefully inattentive."

_ <Maximus, you are going too far. Well, Priest three four> _

Through the glass of the soundproof chamber, the brothers were sitting on the floor facing each other. A game board made of amber-colored wood was in front of the younger prince, with a set of refined shaped pieces for the game known as Bak Taga. Maximus moved a blue one in response to Blackagar's request, then relocated his red one without a pause and awaited his brother's next move.

"Anyway, it would be better if Karnak hadn't tried to teach that wimpy Crystal how to play such a stupid game. Oh, for strategic thinking or whatever, he’s been ridiculously obsessed with Bak Taga lately."

At fourteen years of age, Maximus had hit a growth spurt and surpassed Karnak's height, but there was still some infantile quality on his slightly rounded cheeks and pouty lips. His quirky black hair, a shared trait in the Boltagon brothers, was cropped regularly, trimmed, and straightened every daybreak by the nursemaids, but it gave Maximus an even younger look than he already was.

_ <Doesn't Karnak play it with you? > _

"I'm not playing it with him."

Blackagar signaled his next move to his brother with his digits, and Maximus swiftly ended his turn again, urging him to play his next move. He took the piece in that weirdly elegant hand and placed it on the board with a clatter of wood against wood, and released it in a smooth motion. Despite declaring it stupid, Maximus seemed to be quite skilled in the game.

<Why not play with Karnak? He would be a more formidable opponent than me>

"Where's the fun in a game you know you will win? His game plan is pathetically transparent. Too focused on looking for a vulnerable spot and only attempting to strike there."

Blackagar found his brother's responses with a disdainful snort amusing.

_ <Then why are you always playing with me like this? You'll win even if you play with fewer pieces to make the game a handicap match> _

Whimsical and eccentric, Maximus's moods became more unpredictable as he grew up, and yet, was he willing to continue to play games with his brother that he knew he would win, simply because they were brothers, not cousins?

"You may assume that I am indeed free here, brother, but here is no different from there. A prison the size of a city. You are not permitted to do this, shouldn't do that, the outworld is polluted, we could not survive out of here, this stuff was not supposed to exist, you must not know this... Everything makes me bored out of my mind."

At the unexpected statement, Blackagar abruptly glanced up from the board to stare at his brother's face, and Maximus grinned unusually bright at his brother.

"Besides, you know, defeating you is quite fun."

It resembled the dedication of a little child who, without any sense of guilt, just ripped off the limbs of an insect and tore its wings apart, as if it were a normal thing to do. But Blackagar had spent his whole childhood in the small space with very little interaction with others, he had no idea about any of this. Moreover, his eyes had the fire that was too vicious to be identified as innocent.

  
  


\----------

  
  


The vessel bearing the Kree emissaries with the treacherous bargain drew a lazy arc in the languid summer sky, plunged into the palace where the king and queen were living.

The blazes soaring among the silver spires tinted the evening air with a vibrant red. The cacophony of collapsing towers, crushing the many lives that had been passing through it as if they are ants building their formicary, felt almost as detached from reality as lightning strikes on the far-off mountains.

The siblings remained standing frozen in the middle of rubbles under a shower of falling sparks. The younger one's muffled sobbing echoed in Blackagar's ears as if it followed him like the whispers of bewildered ghosts who had abruptly taken away their lives at the very moment.

"Mother..., Father... what have I..."

Maximus's thin shoulders trembled, which made him look even smaller than he was in his sights. Unlike him, who had grown strong and muscular during his nineteen years of confinement in a cage-like chamber, Maximus seemed to have lived his life outside freely but still looked much the same as his younger days, slender and sickly pale, even though he had grown much taller.

"I... it was you... you killed... our father and mother!"

Maximus's teary red eyes gazed at Blackagar with fathomless pain, unfulfilled resentment, and deep bitterness.

After years of isolation to control his devastating force, at last, their parents released Blackagar from the isolation chamber. A few months after, he had witnessed his little brother striking the secret pact with a heretical sect of the Kree Empire.

The Kree was one of the most mighty species that aspired to conquer the galaxies, conducting a series of experiments on Earth's archaic humans to create living weapons targeting their sworn enemies, the Skrulls. In the process, the Inhumans were converted by the Terrigen Crystals to become a new race. For untold reasons, the Kree scientists abandoned their experiments and left the planet, leaving the Inhumans to build their civilization.

His own brother, the second prince, the future regent of the nation, committed the unfaithful deed of attempting to sell his people to the Kree, a group that viewed the Inhumans as mere weapons or slaves. He confronted Maximus despite his reluctance to believing this.

Realizing the Kree emissary vessel was about to escape while the brothers quarreled, Blackagar directed his catastrophic voice toward heaven, without giving much consideration to the consequences it would cause. The scream even caused Maximus to lose control of his powers. He accidentally unleashed a mental bolt that reduced the crews of the emissary's vessel to no more than puppets without strings... the result was nothing but explosions, flames, smoke, and piles of wreckage.

Although Blackagar was seized by suffocating guilt, he suppressed the urge to bark at his brother with all the simmering rage that nearly consumed him.

A few years ago, he had noticed that Maximus possessed the latent ability to manipulate others' minds. Except for him, for unknown reasons, his little brother was unable to access his mind unless he opened his mind up and welcomed him in. He did his best to control his own emotions, unlocking the gate of the psychic realm, talking to him with his mind.

_"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't desired the throne that wasn't yours and tried to sell out Attilan to the Kree. Father and Mother would never have died."_

"Are you thinking this is all my fault, that I just wanted the throne? I've just done what I had to for us. If only you hadn't interfered with my plans..."

Maximus's words struck him as more of a genuinely held belief in his statement rather than a lie or blame-shifting to cover up the mayhem. Starting to feel more confusion than fury, Black Bolt hesitantly extended his hand towards his brother, but Maximus started giggling maniacally all of a sudden.

"Oh, yes, very well. If that provides you some sense of solace, let's leave that like the throne was all I fancied, let it be that way. I've seen nothing, the city of cocoons, the obsidian cliff, the gargantuan gods coming to pick the fruits, all the delusions of a mad, sick, pathetic child. It was nothing more than another power struggle. Our parents created me out of fear of a coming downfall, but ultimately I become their downfall."

Babbling enigmatic words as if he was possessed, Maximus's hands fluidly glide as he made grandiose motions, the heretical beauty concealed by his black gloves. To Blackagar, the gloves appeared to suffocate the beauty. He gripped his brother's hands and carefully removed the gloves.

His brother's beautiful fingers, the first time he had touched, were as callous and rough as he had always envisioned them to be.

  
  


\-----------

  
  


"How could the sacred Terrigen Crystals, which define us Inhumans, be utilized as a weapon? Sweet Randac, our ancestors would crawl out of their graves, with our parents in the lead, if they overheard. Everyone keeps calling me Mad, but well, who's truly mad?"

In outer space, far from Earth.

After the Skrulls Secret Invasion, everything began to change in Attilan. The Inhumans allied themselves with the Kree Empire, while Atilan was co-ruled by Black Bolt and Maximus together. The city itself was modified to operate as a space battleship.

Gorgon and others were baffled by these drastic changes. But in the prolonged war against Shi'ar Empire, had to admit the importance of Lord Maximus, the regent of the nation, the lead engineer of the city-ship, the head of weapons design and development, a man who worked with precision, speed, and dedication, but chatted and behaved with eccentricity.

Maximus slumped on the floor, groaning heavily. At his side was new weaponry under construction, designed and built for Black Bolt's secret commission. He removed his hideously large and bulky protective gloves for hazardous tasks and tossed them casually. The signs of his deprived sleep and exhaustion were obvious enough for Black Bolt as he watched from a slight distance. He had been setting all his plans and research back and overworked not only due to the war but also he had to spend the rest of his time and energy for the king's secret weapon of mass destruction.

_"I'm sorry, Maximus. But you're the only one I can entrust with the task."_

"No sweat, dear brother. It might be better to be occupied with the war and stuff than to spend all my time in an empty dungeon."

Not even sparing a look at his brother, Maximus picked up the calibration device from the floor and placed it on his lap to watch it closely.

"The estimates of the required energy at detonation to achieve the desired result showed that your voice was a crucial factor, yet you agreed despite your position as the king. I knew you had quite an appetite for masochism, though I didn't expect you to go so far. Did the humiliation of being captured at the hands of the Skrulls awaken your hidden kinks? Or, in the human's terms, a savior complex, or perhaps a martyr complex."

Black Bolt frowned and quietly shook his head. Maximus chuckled and began to operate the device to adjust the parameters of the detonator in detail.

His fingers danced on his creation with accuracy and agility. It was so beautiful despite being smudged with machine oil and metallic particles.

  
  


\------------

  
  


The whole universe was collapsing, leaving most unaware of what was going on.

The Illuminati, a secret band of superheroes that have clandestinely determined the fate of Earth, choose to accept their end, dropping the mission of constant killing of other Earths in other universes to save their own Earth. After attending his big brother and aiding the team, Maximus betrayed his brother and took over his mind out of the blue, disappearing together.

At the end of the world, Black Bolt was left at the mercy of his insane little brother, incapable of doing anything to help himself. Strangely, Maximus didn't seem to be plotting anything, just playing around in the human world.

Medusa became in charge of Attilan, assigned a few to search for Black Bolt. Finally, they found them in the Himalayas - the site where Attilan had been in the past.

As he was forced to fight against the search party led by Gorgon, Black Bolt sensed that Maximus's psychic grasp on him abruptly banished. Looking around - it has been a long time since he was able to move his neck on his own accord - his little brother, stood on the edge of the cliff, gawking at his bloodstained palm with wide-open eyes, like a lost child.

In the process of regaining control over himself, Black Bolt had a sudden epiphany of what his crazed brother wanted from all these days.

At the end of the world, he just ached to escape from boredom without fretting over anything, with his big brother alone.

_'Here is no different from there. A prison the size of a city.'_

Fourteen-year-old Maximus's voice had resurfaced in his memory. If Attilan was a prison in the form of a city to him, this world itself was also tedious confinement that chained them?

Maximus's twisted perception of the reality, where there was nothing meaningful other than himself and his older brother, was about to pay for the price by a bullet fired from someone he would have never considered as something relevant.

Bleeding from his chest and staggering towards the edge of the cliff, he extended his arms to his brother. Black Bolt caught his wrists without thinking. Maximus touched his face tenderly with dark-red stained hands. His fingers were callous and rough as always, but they looked more beautiful and stunning than ever before.

The whispers of Black Bolt eliminated that morbid beauty from existence.

His little brother, driven by madness and believed in the unconditional love from him, fell into a bottomless void, staring at the scant remnants of his deft hands that had spawned numerous bizarre creations.

  
  


\-------------

The world ended, and then, it started again.

  
  


\----------

  
  


In New Arctiran, a city hidden on the dark side of the moon, Black Bolt saw his brother's face after a long while.

Maximus sat cross-legged on a slate of stone, his fingers poking at some iridescent crystalline objects that floated in midair.

"Ah, brother, good to see you again. Did you get back together with Medusa after all? Not really? Hmm, you can be a bit wishy-washy when it comes to this."

Maximus smiled wistfully, not even bothering to mention the fact that he had sent him to the prison among stars as a replacement for himself.

The journey into outer space and the battles beyond imagination against ''gods'' seemed to have had a significant impact on Maximus' perception. The once unpredictable and erratic nature of him seemed to have lessened, gained some serenity instead.

"Oh, you mustn't touch these crystals. Primagen's effect on Inhumans is still hard to predict. We cannot afford to let something go wrong and have you blow this entire city up."

Black Bolt frowns at his words.

_''You're alright to touch it?''_

"Don't you remember? I had to build prosthetic hands, thanks to you. Robot hands won't allow me to touch it _directly_."

Maximus waved his hands in front of Black Bolt's face. Of course, the ex-king had never forgotten what he had done to him. Still, it had the same shape and fingers that gracefully moved as he reminisced.

Despite knowing his brother's genius, it was hard for him to see it as artificial. As he took it unintentionally, it felt quite indistinguishable from real skin, yet made him realize it was fabricated and not Maximus's own flesh-and-bones hands.

The fingertips were so tender and smooth.


End file.
